Raimi does a little 21st-century updating of the Marvel comic hero, who first made his appearance back in 1962, but remembers to keep the heart along with the action. Peter Parker (Maguire) is a nerdy teenager who gets tongue-tied every time he's around the babe of his dreams--Mary Jane Watson (Dunst). His life changes--not necessarily for the better--when he gets bitten by a genetically altered spider and takes on weird arachnid traits, such as strength, agility, wall crawling, web shooting, and swinging. After a family tragedy, the newly monickered Spider-Man becomes a crime fighter. His nemesis is, of course, the Green Goblin (Dafoe), who himself has a dual identity.